Seattle InfoCamp was on October 8 and 9 and I went both days. I learned a lot and consumed new ideas. I love the format of this “unconference” – how it works is that they only schedule keynote speakers and everyone attends their talks, and then on the day of the event anyone who wants to present can do so in any of the 8 conference rooms. There are enough people there that there are always 8 choices of presents and enough people attending all talks.

I heard Nam-ho Park from Forum One speak. He had asked so many good questions when I gave the Wikipedia presentation at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Forum One is a company that does marketing for health agencies, and in particular, they know how to make visual representations of statistics. After his talk I asked him how I could get started in this and he said that I should check out Tableau Software in Fremont.

I met this guy named Chris Sheats who was interested in learning WordPress and promoting the Washington Pirate Party. Many people are confused about what pirate political parties mean – it has nothing to do with software piracy. Among other things, it refers to establishing software and information rights where currently no law exists, and many people do quite innocuous things which could easily be done in books but which become less legal if done online. Instead of leaving these people to, I might say, “pirate uncharted wild seas,” the pirate party asks for legal reform to move the careers of practically everyone who works with computers from an ambiguous area to the legal area. I hope I get to work more with him in the future – he seemed like someone with good ideas who needed practice with his delivery.

I met a software guy who had worked a little for the Wikimedia Foundation. He implemented a program called Living Voters Guide which was an example of how people can use crowdsourced discussion to help people sort their thoughts on political issues. I like the idea but the platform needs work.

I gave a Wikipedia talk at this event. Some people came and they asked good questions and at this point I am confident in my ability to talk about Wikipedia for hours in front of a crowd. There are different talks I am able to give, and I am in the process of sorting my talks so that I can be sure to cover the most important points in the least time in the future. I invited the people there to a meetup on October 25 so I will see how that turns out.

I got contacts for lots of other people. I have a lot to follow up on!

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